Then she turned, ever so slightly, to look over her shoulder.
Her eyes were so haunting, they made me feel things.
Her face was so familiar, it made me feel things.
Every feature carved into her face made me feel things.
And then I was trying to breathe, trying to find my voice. “Adora?”
It wasn’t Adora. I knew it as soon as the name left my lips.
It took a second longer to fight the initial heart-fisting reaction to know Adora’s eyes were a different shade, more feline. Adora’s lips were fuller, rounder. They shared the same nose, and though anyone else could have mistaken her for Adora, I knew that it wasn’t.
I touched every inch of Adora.
My lips had tasted every inch of Adora.
I’ve been drawing Adora my entire life.
That was how I knew this woman was not her.
However, she was someone who looked just like her, and she was wearing the same chain around her neck as Adora.
Cleo clutched my arm, almost screaming in my ear but it sounded as though it were a million miles away. “I don’t understand,” I whispered, shaking my head. “If you’re not her, then who are you?”
Her lips moved, but nothing came out. It was as if her voice had been stolen from her. So, I tried reading her lips, but then she stepped over the threshold, vanishing.
Cleo was now standing in front of me. “What did you see?”
But I pushed her to the side and sprinted after the woman.
As soon as my foot stepped outside the threshold, the walls dissolved and the floor disappeared right out from under me, gravity yanking me down into a black hole. Falling, falling, my stomach churned and my arms and legs moved frantically for something to cling to, fearing what would happen once the fall stopped.
I could see the end drawing nearer.
I thought I would have more time.
But time was running out.
And just before I hit the bottom, my eyes opened.
A plethora of oxygen rushed down my throat, and I turned over, coughing so hard it felt as though it were ripping my lungs apart, my throat on fire.
“Breathe, Stone,” I heard, not knowing who’d said it. I felt a hand push up my spine as I braced myself onto my palms, then dropped to my elbows, curling to open my airways. The cough turned into a wheeze, and my heart was beating a hundred times a second. “Take a deep breath.”
It was Zephyr, and his fingers pushed up my spine again, circulating my blood, commanding things to move as they should inside me. I felt it, and I inhaled a deep breath, then exhaled, feeling everything fall back into rhythm again.
I turned over and lay on my back.
My eyes were watering, and I pressed the heel of my palms into them.
“What happened?” I croaked, then blinked a few times, seeing Zephyr and Beck surrounding me.
“You were out for three hours,” Zephyr said, handing me bottled water.
I sat up, swiped a palm down my face, and unscrewed the cap. “Three hours? What about the four of you?”
“I drank my own fucking hair,” Phoenix grumbled from feet away. “So, yeah, talk about a weird experience.”
